Wednesday, March 15, 2006

I’ll be in San Jose Thursday and Friday (23rd and 24th) to partake in the tail end of GDC. Unfortunately, that means I’ll be missing out on the general blog meet up on Wednesday.

If anyone who reads this site is around, I’d be delighted to buy you a beer. Drop me a note beforehand and we can set a time to meet up. My email (which I’ve been meaning to post on the site someplace) is danc [at] lostgarden.com.Speaking of beer…I adore GDC, not because of the content, but because of the camaraderie. Game developers are really just great people to get together in a group. Dig out some tall ones (chilled in never end supplies of hotel ice), gather a group of funny, intelligent and highly creative folks and chat until dawn. It doesn’t have to be about games. Politics, science, food…the conversation is guaranteed to be good. Those faces that stick around year-after-year end up becoming an oddly rarified family of peers.

For many years, my friends Lennart, Arno and I have had a tradition of swapping a suitcase full of beer from our respective local breweries. Since they are from the Netherlands, I always felt like I was getting the better end of the deal. Belgian beer is pure decadence. This year, they are locked away working on a project of the “None May Speak Its Name” variety. I think I’ll still bring a bottle or two of Seattle’s finest for old time’s sake.

Take careDanc.

PS: Here are the sessions that caught my eye:

Advanced Prototyping

Disrupting Development

Agile Methodology in Game Development: Year 3

Play Early, Play Often: Prototyping Side Meier’s Civilization IV

Spore: Preproduction Through Prototyping

Is That a Franchise in Your Pocket? An Animal Crossing: Wild World Case Study

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About Me

I've been a game designer, pixel artist, toolmaker, physicist and MBA. My first job in college was on a game called Tyrian at a tiny company called Epic Megagames. These days, I'm the Chief Creative Officer at Spry Fox.